Some golfers may say that after all they are not very much affected by this sort of thing so far, and are not likely to be. Is it worth while bothering about? they may ask. A man who has the true spirit of the links within him will not ask the question, nor will he think that this writer has laboured the warning that is hereby conveyed. Of all the things in golf that matter the most for its future welfare, this is the most important, for it might conceivably be a question of life and death with the game, and it is time that the whole of the golf world understood and appreciated, and then at every opportunity henceforth, in small matters as well as in large ones, set itself against all influences that are not for the good of the game. It is right and proper that the makers of golfing goods should practise their commercialism to the utmost extent of their capacity outside the area of the game, but not inside our doors. It is ultimately to the advantage of the players that they should do so. But except those who make these goods, we deny that others who do not play have the right to make money out of our game, if they might spoil it for ourselves in so doing.
IV
Just lately certain desperadoes, whom one need hardly say had no connection with the premier club, held a bogey competition over the new course at St. Andrews. A while previously some others were reported to have held a similar contest over the old course itself, which was worse. Here in St. Andrews it is almost held as a sin merely to mention the name of bogey, or even to refer to it somewhat indefinitely as “the Colonel.” All know that the Royal and Ancient Club will have nothing whatever to do with the idea of bogey competitions, and though they are common enough in these days, you generally find the best class of golfers of the old school fighting shy of the idea, and to the best clubs, quite apart from the R. and A., the idea is still taboo. The standpoint which these clubs and these men take is that ordinary match-play is the true golf, and when it comes to needing a variation from it for special purposes, there is the score game in reserve. These two, they say, are ample for all purposes, and any other forms of golf that may be invented are not real golf; they are more or less of travesties, they are needless complications, and for the most part they are the inventions of faddists, which, if universally sanctioned by the community, would lead to the production of other fads even worse, so that innumerable fantastic changes would be rung on this fine, simple game of golf to its undoing, since it cannot possibly be better than, or even so good as, in its simplest form. Already in some parts of the country there are four-ball foursomes against bogey being played, and some wild ideas for new-fangled competitions have been sent across the Atlantic to us from America. That is why bogey is never so much as mentioned at St. Andrews, and why the surest way that the Southron, on making his first visit to the classic headquarters of the game, may be made to feel uncommonly small and to wish that he had not been so inquisitive, is to ask on playing the first hole—which often enough leaves you a pretty stiff carry over the Swilcan Burn from your tee shot,—whether it is a bogey 4 or 5. The town authorities notify you by printed placard that they have the power by by-law to fine you for playing on the old course with iron clubs only, and also for practising putting on the eighteenth green, and one would never be much surprised if it were made a matter of ten shillings and costs, or a week in default, for playing there against old bogey. Certain it is that there are many good golfers there who would be glad to hear of such a penalty.
The experienced man who tries to take a broad view of this minor question of golfing politics generally comes to the conclusion that the anti-bogeyists are quite right, and that we do not want any complications in the game, and he takes it particularly in mind that the bogey system is entirely the result of the modern craze for pot and medal hunting, since it was designed solely and exclusively as a new form of competition. One would not dream nowadays of going out to play a game with a friend, each man playing his holes against bogey. Therefore there is nothing friendly and nothing sociable in the idea, and it is not golf, and it is condemned all the more inasmuch as its special object is to release erring players from the penalties of their errors, such as they would have to pay for in stroke play. It is therefore an encouragement to mediocrity. At the same time our broad-minded critic would agree that this bogey has been in for a good many years now, has outlived the attacks that have been made upon it, and has certainly established a place for itself in the golfing scheme of things which nothing seems likely to disturb. You generally find that as a golfer gets on in experience he cares less and less for bogey play, if he ever cared for it at all; but the new generation like it apparently, and will have it. Therefore we must tolerate it. It is a matter of some satisfaction to notice that more and more do clubs begin to make a standard reckoning of the value of their holes on the par system instead of the bogey. There is no sort of sense in saying that the bogey of a particular hole is 4 or 5, or anything else that it may be put down at. The majority of “bogey 5’s” are real 4’s, and it is difficult to see what is the object of placing a standard value on a hole unless that standard represents faultless play by a good man, as the par figure does, and not such play as may include two half-spoiled shots or one completely foozled one, as the bogey figure frequently allows. It is often the case that at a “bogey 5” on a suburban course a good player can make a complete bungle of his second shot and still do the 5 with some ease. What, then, is the use of this sort of valuation of the holes on various courses?
So what with his somewhat surreptitious appearance at St. Andrews, and many violent attacks that have been made upon him, some men saying with withering sarcasm that they think they have heard of him before somewhere, the poor old Colonel has been having a rather exciting and not entirely happy time of it in recent seasons, and one feels a certain amount of pity for him, recognising that he really has given much pleasure to many players. In this sympathetic mood one may listen patiently to the story of his career. He has seen considerable service now, for he became attached to golf at the beginning of its boom days. The origin of the association was curious. Although some have it that bogey was born at Elie, a Coventry gentleman, Mr. Hugh Rotherham, is more generally believed to have been the first to come by the germ of the idea. This was in December 1890, when what was called the scratch score of the Coventry course was taken, and there was given to each hole a figure which was supposed to represent the scratch value. This was called the “ground score,” and some six months later, when the idea had become well assimilated, Mr. Rotherham offered a prize for a competition in which the players would play against this ground score; while in the autumn of the same year the club put up a challenge cup for annual competition on the same lines. Thus already the idea was established, but not the name.
About this time some of the members of the Coventry club went as a party to Great Yarmouth, where the idea was explained to Dr. Thos. Browne, R.N., honorary secretary of the club. He thought well of its possibilities and advantages, and, taking considerable interest in it, wrote to various prominent golfers asking them their views of the advisability or otherwise of introducing this “ground score” into the general routine of competition golf. For the most part the replies were favourable.
Now one day Dr. Browne went out to play against a friend of his, Major Charles A. Wellman, on this system, and that winter the “bogey man” song was the hit of the pantomimes in the music-halls.
“Hush! Hush! Hush!
Here comes the Bogey man!
So hide your head beneath the clothes,
He’ll catch you if he can!”
were the words of the refrain that gave a creepy feeling to the little children of the day. “He’ll catch you if he can!” There was the idea of bogey in golf, and it flashed across the mind of Major Wellman when he was playing this game and getting caught by bogey. “Why,” said he to Dr. Browne, “this player of yours is a regular bogey man.” In that chance remark a considerable piece of golfing history was made, for bogey was made for golf. Dr. Browne thought this name was excellent, and should be adopted, as it was by the Great Yarmouth Club.